At Marygrove, we’ve always subscribed to the belief that positive change requires a diverse set of perspectives all working together towards a common goal. Our world, both locally and globally, is complex—and we’re humble enough to know that we can only make sense of it when we view it through more than one lens.

In 1997, novelist George Dawes Green started The Moth, an evening of spontaneous storytelling, with the hope that it might recreate, or at least mimic, the summer evenings he’d spent with friends on his Georgia porch; there they would sip whiskey and trade stories late until the evening while moths beat themselves against the lights.

Trying to manage your life as a full-time student isn’t easy—especially when you couple academic life with being a parent and working. If you would, though, take a few minutes and consider a few of our suggestions for managing your college career with grace and poise. They may pay off in the long run.

Google “Things to do in Detroit”—you’ll get the usual suspects: The DIA, The Science Center, The Henry, The North American International Auto Show, The Motown Museum. These staples are certainly noteworthy, but you’ve already seen them. Now what? Give five of these lesser-known city gems a shot. If you’re at Marygrove College, you can get to all of them in 10 minutes.

Very soon it’s going to happen: The Research Paper. “Writing Across the Curriculum” has become the mantra of most colleges and universities, which means that you are going to be writing a research paper in most of your classes—yep, even in your math, science and dance courses.

You may be new to the process, but don’t let inexperience create an unnecessary amount of anxiety. You’re purusing higher education to become a scholar, right? Exactly. So cut yourself some slack. If you knew everything already, there’d be no reason for you to be here.

It’s early in the semester and you have plenty of time and resources (your peers, professors and FREE writing tutors) to walk you through the process. And speaking of resources, here are what I consider to be five indispensable tips for writing a research paper.

What does student engagement look like?A teacher located center stage? Tidy rows of silent, wide-eyed pupils? Imagine the exact opposite of this and you’d get professor Andrew Martin’s classroom. Here’s how a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education describes his evolutionary-biology class at the Universtiy of Colorado:

It is commonly known that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) respond enthusiastically to technology-infused classrooms. But what often stands between these children and effective computer-based, hands-on curriculum is clunky hardware. Although most of us use these navigational tools with relative ease, a keyboard or a mouse could literally mean the difference between a breakthrough and further isolation.